The Cubs have a new front-line starter and top-tier manager, a slew of elite prospects, and money to spend. The front office has a plan, and the division is in decline. So stop talking about building a future contender, North Siders. The playoff run begins now.

About Last Night: Spilling the Beans

In case you were busy being ready for some football, some Wednesday-night football, Wednesday-night football that is never going to come, here’s what you missed in sports on Wednesday:

Tampa Bay Buccaneers corner back Darrelle Revis has said he’s “happy to spill the beans,” in advance of the Bucs’ matchup with his former team, the New York Jets. “It was a nice offer,” said Bucs head coach Greg Schiano, “but it’s just beans.” When asked to clarify Schiano added, “Seriously, their whole playbook is just a box of supposedly magic beans. Apparently they traded their old defensive playbook, which was quite good, with some sort of evil space wizard wearing a sleeveless hooded cloak, and ended up with a box of beans.” Schiano, a New Jersey native shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t believe it, but, you know … Jets.”

An all-Italian quarterfinal at the U.S. Open yielded the day’s biggest upset as Flavia Pennetta beat out no. 10 seed Roberta Vinci, 6-4, 6-1. Vinci was sanguine despite her loss, saying, “I have no regrets, I came, I saw, I Vinci.” Meanwhile, despite advancing to her first career Grand Slam singles semifinal, Pennetta was less pleased with her tournament experience, saying, “I have many regrets; I came, I saw, I was detained at LaGuardia Airport after an idiotic mix-up involving former CIA director Leon Panetta. I did not conquer.”

A day after manager Joe Girardi said he would try to talk Mariano Rivera out of retiring, the Yankees closer played a vital role, getting David Robertson out of an eighth-inning jam before throwing a 1-2-3 ninth, in his team’s 6-5 win over the Chicago White Sox. “I didn’t need his help, Joe,” Robertson said to his manager after the game. Girardi flashed a sympathetic smile at his setup man. “Hey pal, we all need a little help sometimes. No shame in that.” But Robertson wasn’t having it, and exploded at his manager, yelling “You’re not my dad, and neither is Mo!” before storming out of the locker room and onto the streets of the South Bronx with nothing but his uniform and his lucky blanket to keep him warm.

Texas starter Yu Darvish was uncharacteristically wild, walking six in five innings, as the Oakland A’s knotted up the AL West race with an 11-4 win over the Rangers. “It’s like he knows my every move,” said sabermetrically inclined general managers Billy Beane and Jon Daniels at the same time after the game, “now get him on the line for me. I want to see if I can take a lefty relief prospect who doesn’t give up home runs off of him for an overvalued multi-tool outfielder with no chance of making it in the bigs.” However, since both men demanded that the call be made at the exact same time, both men got busy signals on the other end. “Damn!” they both exclaimed in dismay, “I wonder what he’s up to … better call Ruben Amaro out in Philly just to make sure he isn’t getting his fleece on right now.”

Reserve first baseman Matt Adams was the hero for St. Louis, as the second of his two extra-inning home runs proved decisive in the Cardinals’ 16-inning 5-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they would later have to forfeit the game, as Matt Adams turned out to be an auto-generated player name from MVP Baseball 2005 who had been working his way up the team’s virtual minor league system on an Xbox that had been left on by Stevie Anderson of Henderson, Nevada, for eight years, and not an actual human on their 40-man roster. Sadly, this difference was unexplainable to Adams; his reality was all that he knew, and the notion that it was not as he perceived was outside the realm of his virtual consciousness’s understanding.

First the Cleveland Indians brought a live chicken into the outfield during batting practice, then they went on to take a 6-4 win off the Baltimore Orioles to improve their wild-card hopes. However, since there is no connection between these two events, no one will suggest that the chicken had anything to do with the game, or give a scouting report on the chicken … or … um … Terry Francona, manager of the Indians said after the game, “It was a very calm chicken. It handled itself well. We scored six runs so maybe the chicken will be here tomorrow.” Got that, guys? Very calm chicken. Moving on …

Rafael Nadal continued his splendid run at the U.S. Open, easily beating countryman Tommy Robredo 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the semifinals. When asked how he was displaying such rare form in New York, where he had struggled in the past, Nadal said, “I was relaxing by my lonesome on my veranda in Paris as I’m wont to do when I’m in Paris, and I asked myself, ‘Is Paris the City of Lights?’ And then I said, ‘Yes, Rafa, you know it to be so.’ And then I asked myself, ‘But does not New York have just as many lights as Paris? If not more?’ And then I said, ‘Yes, Rafa, New York has just as many lights as Paris if not more.’ And that’s when everything changed for me.”

In a battle of the top offenses in the majors, David Ortiz and the Boston Red Sox prevailed, blasting a franchise-record eight home runs in the team’s 20-4 win over the Detroit Tigers. “That’s a football score!” said Australian Sean Culligan, “I mean, it’s like the Detroit Wallabies got four behinds, and the Boston Red Koalas got three goals and two behinds! What a low-scoring Aussie rules football match that would be, eh? Crikey!”

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